30 January 2013

In one of my small nail groups, we've been reminiscing lately and sharing old photos. So I starting thinking about old songs that I could use for today's mani when I finally figured out what I should do!

Kryptonite by 3 Doors Down was one of my favorite songs in high school. I still love it actually! What makes the song even better is that the first time I heard it, I was wearing my Superman t-shirt.

To save myself some time, I decided to paint the Superman logo ahead of time as a decal. It sorta worked. I made the decal a bit too big and when I put it over the blue base, the colors didn't stand out as much as I wanted. The face and suit were inspired by these Superman nails.

The base coat on the face is Essie Brooch the Subject. The base coat on the other nails is Rimmel Chill. I used acrylic paint for the rest of the design (other than the logo which was done using Migi nail art pens).

I like how these turned out, but I feel like I could have done a neater job.

28 January 2013

Since you know that my time is super limited lately, I was trying to figure out how to so a water marble mani is a short amount of time. At first, I thought about just doing an accent nail, but then I remembered that Bundle Monster has a plate with a water marble stamp and I had that plate (BM 320).

I started with a base coat of NYC MoMa. MoMa is named after the Museum of Modern Art. I only needed 2 coats for this mani. MoMa is part of the In a Minute line and dries nice and fast (I wouldn't say in a minute), plus I really like the brush. They are pretty cheap too so I really should pick up more of these.

As you can see, my stamping didn't work out so well. On the pinkie, I tried Konad Psyche Pink. The colors look cute together, but Psyche Pink isn't as opaque as I hoped it would be. I was having stamping issues so I thought I would try Konad Black with the plate. It sorta worked on my middle finger, but not really. When I was scraping off the excess polish from the plate, I noticed that there wasn't much left on the image. I tried the process several times so I'm going to have to guess that my plate isn't etched very well :(

Check out some other water marble manis below and see if they had better luck than me!

25 January 2013

I love the way galaxy nails look. I've only done them one time on myself during the 31 Day Challenge in August, but I already knew I wanted to do something different for today. I saw this pin which lead me to this mani on Tumblr and knew I wanted to do something like it.

I especially knew I wanted to do a Northern Lights/Aurora Borealis mani because I've been lucky enough to see them once several years ago while in college. Because I was farther south, the only color visible was green, and it was pretty dim at that. I decided to Google some images and was inspired by the ones with green.

This mani took several different steps. First I painted on two coats of Revlon Royal. Next I sponged on Rimmel French White Nail Tip Liner to give a base and to ensure the brightness of the other colors. To create the lights, I sponged on China Glaze I'm With the Lifeguard (green), Sally Hansen Green with Envy, O.P.I. Don't Mess with OPI (green), Sinful Colors Dream On (neon purple), Sinful Colors Amethyst (purple) and Revlon Royal. Whew!

I topped with INM Northern Lights Hologram Top Coat "Silver" (very suiting for this mani!). I created the trees with a small brush and Rimmel Black Satin. Finally, I finished the design with stars in Rimmel French White Nail Tip Liner.

The result turned out pretty awesome, if I do say so myself! The husband even gave it his seal of approval!

23 January 2013

For today's theme, I decided to use a polish made by my good friend Carrie at Sassy Lacquer. Stack 'Em is described as follows: "Stack 'em is part of 'The 80's "Fun" Series' collection, and was inspired by Lego's. This polish has a jellyish green base with small green matte hex glitter, small red hex glitter, small yellow matte hex glitter, and medium blue hex glitter."

Stack 'Em isn't currently listed on the Sassy Lacquer site, but I'm sure Carrie would make it for you it if you asked.!

Now the sad part. The green base in Stack 'Em simply did not show up for me :( So what I did was to layer it over Cult Nails Feelin' Froggy. But I didn't do just any layering. I did a sandwich! I put on Feelin' Froggy, then Stack 'Em, then Feelin' Froggy, then Stack 'Em, and finally my top coat.

The combo looks really good! The sandwiching of Stack 'Em is really subtle, but I still like the effect.

21 January 2013

Just a super quick post for you today. I had a busy though super fun weekend, including a trip to the movies while grandma watched the little man so I'm a bit behind starting off this week.

For today's mani, I decided to go with some simple stamping since I do not always have the time to devote to intricate designs like what I would normally do for delicate print.

The base coat on this is China Glaze Sea Spray. It's a lovely light blue grey with a touch of shimmer (though that's lost since here). I stamped on top using BM-312 and Konad Sky Pearl. I topped it off with Sally Hansen Glass Slipper.

I really like the way this turned out, though Glass Slipper did make it hard for my camera to focus on this mani.

18 January 2013

So I had one idea originally set for today, but I didn't like the way it turned out so I decided to redo it. I didn't have much time so I went with something simple and I love how it turned out.

I started with a base of Zoya Loretta to create a smooth finish. Next, I free handed a French tip using Essie Mojito Madness. I some flower stickers that I bought as part of a big lot off eBay for $.99.

17 January 2013

Originally I thought about doing a zebra and leopard print like these, but I decided to try something I haven't done before. I've seen some beautiful peacock manicures out there so I went with that idea and combined several different ideas together.

I started with a base of Revlon Royal, the quintessential navy blue. Plus it dries super fast which is even better! Next I sponged on Rimmel Wild Orchid in the middle and China Glaze Exotic Encounters on the tip. I stamped on the design using BM 212 and Barry M Silver Foil.

16 January 2013

I've had a lot of fun doing this challenge, but sometimes it been a bit rough with a two month old to find time. So I've been trying to figure out quick manis to do for some of the days. I also wanted to have some fun with my matte polishes (which I love!) and so I came up with today's mani.

I started with a base of China Glaze Stone Cold. I used two coats just to make sure of coverage. I love the shimmer in this grey/black polish.

Next, I drew a line down the middle with Zoya Phoebe, a neon blue matte polish. On either side of that line, I used ManGlaze Fuggen Ugly to add two lines. Those are a bit hard to notice since they are grey like Stone Cold.

Finally I finished off the design by adding two horizontal stripes with ManGlaze Santorum. Santorum is a dark brown but reads black here.

The whole design reminds me of plaid. The best part about this mani? Since I used all matte polishes, it took me 5 minutes total. 5 minutes! That includes dry time and clean up (which was very minimal).

15 January 2013

For today's polka dot mani, I wanted to go with something super bright since it's been fairly gloomy out :/ I think I succeeded!

I started the mani with a base of Wet N Wild Black Creme. In order to make these neon polishes stand out against the black, first I created the pattern using white. I really liked the way that it looked so I was almost tempted to leave it just black and white!

The colors that I used were China Glaze I'm With the Lifeguard (green), Sinful Colors Dream On (purple), and Cosmo Wild Thing (pink).